bless your heart

St. Martin's Press / Minotaur Books | April 2024 (US)

Rebellion / Solaris Books | July 2024 (UK)

Keeping dead things buried is the family business.

For generations, the Evans women have taken care of laying the residents of their Southeast Texas town to rest at Evans Funeral Parlor. Occasionally, one of the quiet rural community’s dead become restless, and it’s the Evanses’ job to put them back in their grave. But this summer has been especially hot, and the dead have begun to rise, ripping the peace—and the throats—out of the town. As four generations of Evans women fight to keep the dead in their graves, long-buried family secrets are forced into the light, and they must confront the truth that the biggest monster may in fact be one of their own.
 
A dead woman’s tongue, a missing dog, and a strange newcomer are law enforcement’s only clues to sort out the hell recently unleashed on their small town—even when all tracks lead back to the Evans women.

A story about monstrous secrets and the power of motherly love, BLESS YOUR HEART is a multi-generational story told from multiple POVS of a diverse cast of characters who fight to save their town from the Strigoi—the original vampire.

"One hell of a horror novel. Monsters, family, and down-home horror—Lindy has masterfully crafted this story from beginning to end.” --Director/Producer George C. Romero, son of the late George A. Romero, creator of Night of the Living Dead 

“Such a brilliant blend of banter and dread. Authored with the confidence of a storyteller who knows every inch, cadence, and beat of their tale. Instantly cinematic. And if you’re anything like me, you’re going to wish you were part of the Evans family, working at the Evans Funeral Home, just so you can spend more time with these people. Lindy Ryan is on fire with this book.” --Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Daphne

"So long, Sookie Stackhouse. Buh-bye, Buffy. The Evans women have arrived and these southern belle slayers are carving out a spot in our undead hearts. Lindy Ryan has harnessed the charm and horror of a Romero-helmed Steel Magnolias. Bless her heart. --Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters 

cold snap

 Titan Books | October 2024

Cover coming soon!

“Ryan weaponizes the dread of grief suffered in isolation. Horrific and heartbreaking.” –Jamie Flanagan, screenwriter The Haunting of Bly Manor

Consumed with grief after the death of her husband weeks before Christmas, a mother takes her son to a remote mountain cabin for the holidays, where a sinister presence stalks deep within the Pennsylvania Wilds.
 
Two weeks ago, Christine Sinclaire’s husband, Derek, slipped off the roof while hanging Christmas lights and fell to his death on the front lawn. Desperate to escape her guilt and her grief, Christine packs up her fifteen-year-old son and the family cat and flees to the cabin they’d reserved deep in the remote Pennsylvania Wilds to wait out the holidays.
 
It isn’t long before Christine begins to hear strange noises coming from the forest. When she spots a horned figure watching from between frozen branches, Christine assumes it’s just a forest animal—a moose, maybe, since the property manager Armentia warned her about them, said they’d stomp a body so deep into the snow nobody’d find it ’til spring--
 
But moose don’t walk upright like the shadowy figure does. They don’t call with Christine’s dead husband’s voice.
 
A terrifying, wintery tale of isolation in the festive season, COLD SNAP is a profound and powerful exploration of the exploded moments we survive in our grief and trauma.

Bookseller Announcement

dollface

St. Martin's Press / Minotaur Books | TBD 2025 

Commissioned Concept Art

After witnessing her mother’s bizarre death, a horror author falls in with a catty group of suburban moms where she becomes the Final Girl in her very own slasher.

After witnessing her mother’s cosmetics-induced suicide, uninspired horror author Jill Marshall has no interest in the beauty products her influencer sister Kitty peddles. She’s also not the kind of girl who’d involve herself in the elementary school PTA. But when her family transfers across the country and her sweet new neighbor Darla Lashett delivers a welcome basket full of makeup samples from a brand Jill’s never heard of—DOLLFACE—she finds herself helping Darla end her last year as PTA President “with a bang” at the upcoming Halloween Boogie Bash.

Then the attacks begin.
​
The body count stacks up in a wild series of mutilations lacking any consistent MO. The fact that they’re all members of the Brunswick PTA is the only connection—that and all survivors saw someone in a vintage doll mask: pert nose, blonde hair to the jawline, beauty mark. But as Jill struggles with her new novel, she alone sees a pattern in which all signs point to Darla—and tonight is Boogie Bash.

The Stepford Wives meets Scream in this violent descent into the cult-like nature of toxic beauty standards and feminine domesticity. Ryan explores the complicated relationships between mothers and sisters with dark humor and sly nods to classic horror tropes and media. Readers will enjoy this blend of campy cult humor, psychological horror, and familiar slashers set in the modern era of viral beauty culture.

about lindy ryan

LINDY RYAN is a Bram Stoker Awards® Nominee and Silver Falchion Award-winning editor, author, short-film director, and professor. Ryan is the current author-in-residence at Rue Morgue, the world’s leading horror culture and entertainment brand. Her guest articles and features include NPR, BBC Culture, Irish Times, Daily Mail, and more. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the Brothers Grimm Society of North America. In 2022, she was named one of horror's most masterful anthology curators, alongside Ellen Datlow and Christopher Golden, and has been declared a "champion for women's voices in horror" by Shelf Awareness (2023). Her animated short film, TRICK OR TREAT, ALISTAIR GRAY, based on her children's book of the same name, won the Grand Prix Award at the 2022 ANMTN Awards. 
​
Ryan is currently a full-time professor at Rutgers University in the Masters of Professional Science program, She is also a guest faculty mentor in Western Connecticut State’s MFA program. Prior to her career in academia, Ryan was the co-founder of Radiant Advisors, a business intelligence research and advisory firm, where she led the company’s research and data enablement practice for clients that included 21st Century Fox Films, Warner Bros., and Disney. In 2017, Ryan founded Black Spot Books, an independent press focused on amplifying underrepresented voices in horror, where she maintains her role as President after the company was acquired in 2019 as an imprint of Vesuvian Media. Ryan served from 2020 to 2022 on the Board of Directors for the Independent Book Publishers Association and was a PW 2020 Star Watch Honoree. Currently, she is the co-chair of the Horror Writers Association Publishers Council. 

Ryan grew up cutting her teeth on Goosebumps and universal monsters. She has published numerous academic texts and also writes clean, seasonal romance under the name ​Lindy Miller, where her books have been adapted for screen.